Paquita la del Barrio | The scorned women in Latin music
Rata De Dos Patas (2004) is a bolero ranchera song. A Mexican regional genre typically sung by boisterous men. But Paquita is a singer who made her career by singing songs that disparaged men in a musical genre arguably created for those men.
I had originally planned to release one long article on 5 scorned women in Latin music. However, their stories are so rich, I decided to do a series instead. Opting to give each woman the time and care she deserves. The first in this series is Shakira. Head over to the introductory article to find out about the other women on the list.
Paquita la del barrio (Paquita from the Hood) started getting recognition by performing in restaurants, bars, and cantinas of Mexico City, where typically women were not allowed to be customers. Some cantinas boasted of prohibiting access to women by displaying signs in their front doors that read, "Entrance is prohibited to women, the underage, men in uniform." In 1982, men threw a fit when the prohibition of women in cantinas was outlawed.
Finding a cantina that won't allow women to be customers is harder nowadays. She sang songs like Hombres Malvados (2005) where she expressed, "What is it with me and men? Why do I hate them so much? How could I not hate them if they are the cause of so much damage?" in those same spaces.
When she was a fifteen-year-old child, she married a 42-year-old man. She later discovered the man was already married and had a family in a different town. Her second husband cheated on her multiple times. In an interview, she declares, "What I say is true. Don't think that I sing to attack anyone. I tell stories. I say things like ‘woman lives crushed because she is scared of man.’ And on the day the woman stands in her place and reclaims her space, that is the day that she will succeed." These are the experiences she has had to live through to sing about the men she hates.
She is loud, she has always had short hair and used long dresses that cover most of her body. Her figure is not curated to appease men. And her voice is deeper and fuller than most women. Her stance is laid back. She often lowers her mic when singing. She simply stands or walks on stage. There are barely any props to her performance, if any. Yet, her presence on the stage is commanding. Even when surrounded by 10 or 15 men playing various musical instruments, she reclaims her space in the spotlight. Wherever she walks on stage, our eyes follow her. Her facial expression and gaze could easily make a weak man crumble.
Her most famous song is Rata De Dos Patas (Two-legged Rat). If you want to get a feel for Paquita's discography, Rata De Dos Patas would be the song to understand it. It is emblematic of her style, her themes, and her sound.
The song begins with a solemn but playful accordion. Then the guitars, the Mexican guitarron (like an acoustic bass), and the bongos enter the mix. After a few beats, the violin. Then, the trumpet comes in to finally give way to Paquitas words. The instruments serve as a musical introduction to Paquita's voice. They narrate the opening of the decry she will present. The music reminds me of old movies where credits would appear at the film's beginning. It's playful, almost mocking. But sorrowful and solemn at the same time.
Then Pacquita sings: "Filthy rat/creeping animal/scum of life/you are hideously shoddy." The musicality of the delivery is terrific. Paquita will say, "Filthy rat," and then trumpets will second her sentiment afterward. She will call the man "a creeping animal" and the trumpet second again. She will sing, "scum of life, you are hideously shoddy," and the trumpet seconds her a third time. It's a playful seesaw game between Paquita and the trumpet.
Paquita continues listing all the nouns and adjectives she can think of to describe this man: "subhuman/spectrum of hell/despicable cursed one/oh how you have damaged me." This is the first line in which we learn why she holds so much hatred for the man she sings to. He has hurt her and damaged her. And for that, he deserves to be cursed at. Paquita upholds what she mentioned in her interview. She will not curse a person without a reason. But she will insult you when you have hurt her.
Her style is one of retribution. She has spent her career calling out machismo culture even if she also participates in it. She has mastered the art of the insult: "Vermin/poisonous colubridae/waste of life/ I hate you, and I despise you." She expresses, in the most inventive way, a simple emotion: hate. The person she despises is just that, a two-legged rat. He is a vermin and a poisonous snake. He is a waste of life, a despicable being not even worth calling human. That is how much he has hurt her.
To be perfectly candid, every time I listen to this song, I cannot help but smile. I aspire to come up with such inventive insults. They are witty and oddly specific. But behind them, behind the boisterous nature of her words and delivery, hides an extremely vulnerable Paquita. One who has been hurt many times. From her first husband, who was 27 years older than her and had a family. To her second husband, who cheated on her. She decries, "I am speaking to you/ even the most cursed creepy crawly insect/compared to you/comes up short."
I feel so much pity and empathy for a woman who has been hurt so profoundly she can only express her disdain by calling the man she speaks to a "cursed leech." How much have weak and abusive men not taken from women? They have leeched women's blood, women's hopes and dreams, and their potential. That is what Paquita is denouncing.
Funnily enough, the composer of the song, Manuel Eduardo Toscano, revealed in 2022 that the song was thought to talk about the then-president of Mexico, Salinas de Gortari. For about two decades, the Mexican imagination thought this song was emblematic of a scorned woman's anthem. Women have sung this song in karaoke restaurants and family gatherings. But then, we discovered this could have been a political protest song. However, the composer has never expressed what he despises so much about Salinas.
Regardless, this song has been and will continue to be a song that scorned women sing at the top of their lungs about cheating men.
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